Genesee interchange widening delayed

Project lacks funding; impact statement late

Point Loma  A project that would widen Genesee Avenue at Interstate 5 is running into funding issues and facing delays in its environmental approvals.

The project would expand the Genesee Avenue freeway overpass from four lanes to six lanes, add extra left- and right-turn lanes for on-ramps in each direction, and expand the off-ramp turning lanes to four at the intersection. City officials estimate the improvements will cost about $60 million.

The deadline to finish environmental studies required for the project was the end of 2009, but the San Diego City Council extended the deadline last week to December 2011.

Councilwoman Sherri Lightner is frustrated with the pace of the study, known as an environmental-impact statement.

“The EIS document was supposed to have been done by now,” Lightner said. “I used to work at General Atomics (which is located near the interchange). I started working there a very long time ago. … It was a problem there then, and it’s still a problem now.”

In addition to the environmental delays, Lightner is worried about the lack of money for the project. A portion of the funding is supposed to come from a facilities benefit assessment, or FBA, that is collected from developers.

“The FBA is not being funded up to the levels anticipated,” Lightner said. “I would contend that the businesses that are going to benefit from (the project) long ago paid into that benefit assessment fund.”

The fund received less money than expected because development slowed with the economic downturn.

“In the last two years the FBA fund is about $33.5 million short of the $34 million it should have had,” Lightner said at the City Council meeting last week, using figures a city staff member could not confirm later.

Still, the office of Mayor Jerry Sanders is optimistic the project can proceed by seeking federal funds.

“We’re hoping construction would start in 2013, and it will probably take about a year and half to finish,” said Alex Roth, a Sanders spokesman.

The city contracted with Kimley-Horn & Associates Inc. for the environmental study, which originated in 2004.

The EIS included traffic, visual, noise and biological assessments. It has been submitted to Caltrans for review and will be subject to public review as well.

A project to widen I-5 north of Genesee Avenue, though not directly related to the interchange project, slowed the survey efforts, said Brad Johnson, a city engineer.

“That project had its own traffic analysis, and we had to coordinate traffic analyses between projects,” Johnson said. “That happens on projects from time to time. It just takes longer than expected.”

The environmental-impact document cost $4.9 million so far to produce, but it provided information for nearby projects as well, Johnson said.

Not everyone thinks that adding lanes is the solution.

“When you get into widening lanes, you don’t see easing congestion. You see more people using those streets as thoroughfares,” said Vince Vasquez, a public policy analyst who works for the National University System Institute for Policy Research, a think tank near Torrey Pines Municipal Golf Course.

Vasquez carpools with a co-worker and uses the intersection daily.

“I think a better solution would have been found in bus rapid transit,” he said. “Widening of the lanes, I think that detracts from the beauty of Torrey Pines and our coastal community. It’s disappointing.”

Vasquez said he would prefer to use public transportation, but as a commuter from downtown, it’s just not practical.

“I would have to make two different stopovers and bus changes to get to work,” Vasquez said. “That’s the issue with San Diego — I don’t have any other choice unless I want to take a two-hour ride.”